Yet here I welcome Thee!
The sunset of a winter afternoon shines on the windows of the chamber where the watchers stand, their hands clasped behind them, and their eyes full of tears. But there is light in the face on the pillow, the breaking of a day beyond the horizon of time.
Tenderly raised a little in the arms of a friend, he murmurs a parting blessing, “I wish you many comforts,” and is gone. On the day following, the 14th February, 1798, they carried him to his grave in the garden. Serfogee, crying like a child, hurried to have one last look at the face of the one who had been more than father to him, and covers the body with a cloth of gold. It was intended to sing a hymn as the funeral made its way, but the lamentations and wailing of the great crowd of poor natives made this impossible. The solemn burial service was performed by Mr. Jaenické, and when this was over and the Europeans had retired, the natives who filled the sacred building remained praying and singing hymns. They begged of the minister to speak of their departed friend, but his own heart was too full to give any address. To use his own words, “I could hardly utter even a few words, and was obliged to summon up all my resolution to read the service. The servant of the deceased stood near me, and said, almost as if fainting, ‘Now, he who was the desire of us all is gone!’ This exclamation went to my heart, but this is not the language of one but of many, old and young, great and small, near and afar, Christians and heathen.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MEMORY OF THE JUST.
By his last will and testament Schwartz left all he had to the mission. He had never married, and had, therefore, no family obligations to consider, but a hundred star pagodas, equal to about £43 in English currency at that time, he directed should be divided amongst his sister’s children. His two gold watches were to be sold and the proceeds given to the poor, thirty star pagodas were to go to his personal servant, and a few silver articles to his friend, Mr. Kohlhoff, as a token of his hearty love. But, apart from these trifling specific bequests, all his savings, together with such property as he had built with his own money, were devoted to the maintenance and support of the work he loved so well. His own personal needs had always been few, his life almost ascetic in its simplicity, so that he was able to put by the allowance from the Government as chaplain to the soldiers, and yet he was generous to the poor, and always ready to help young catechists in their studies. As we have seen, he consistently refused to accept any presents from either European or native rulers to whom he had been of service, and this in a time and place when fortunes were easily made and bribes excused redounds greatly to his credit. A more disinterested and faithful man never served his God and country better than he.
Serfogee Rajah took immediate steps towards the erection of a monument to commemorate the virtues of his beloved friend, and, writing to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, begged them at his expense to have prepared and send a marble monument to his memory to be placed in the church, and near the pulpit where he preached. He closed his request with the words, “May you, honourable sirs, ever be enabled to send to this country such missionaries as are like the late Rev. Mr. Schwartz!” The work was entrusted to Flaxman, and comprised a beautiful group in bas relief representing the death-bed scene, where among some children and friends Serfogee, the Hindu prince, is holding the hand of his dying friend and receiving his blessing. The inscription is as follows:—
To the memory of the
Reverend Christian Frederic Schwartz,
born at Sonnenburg of Neumark, in the Kingdom of Prussia,
the 26th October, 1726,
and died at Tanjore, the 13th February, 1798,
in the seventy-second year of his age.
Devoted from his early manhood to the office of Missionary in the East, the similarity of his situation to that of the first preachers of the Gospel produced in him a similar resemblance to the simple sanctity of the Apostolic character. His natural vivacity won the affection, as his unspotted probity and purity of life alike commanded the reverence, of the Christian, Mohammedan and Hindu; for Sovereign princes, Hindu and Mohammedan, selected this humble pastor as the medium of political negotiation with the British Government, and the very marble which here records his virtues was raised by the liberal affection and esteem of the Rajah of Tanjore, Maha Raja Serfogee.
